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Winter Holiday Council struggling to continue Loveland decorations each year

By Jessica Benes Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
04/02/2013 12:59:43 PM MDT

Jim Dillmann, right, attaches decorations to a post at South Shore Parkway with the assistance of Rick Boe in November 2012. The Winter Holiday Council funds the Christmas decorations.
(Jeff Stahla)

Funding cutbacks by the city of Loveland have left the nonprofit organization that decorates the city for the holidays struggling to deck the halls each year.

"The money we were asking for is change in their pockets," said John Hall, president of the Winter Holiday Council. "They have money."

The Winter Holiday Council had a cushion. When its locally designer pewter ornament didn't sell well in a given year, the members knew they could rely on supplemental money from the city of Loveland.

That is, until two years ago, when city manager Bill Cahill gave the council its last contribution of $10,000 with a letter that said, "The City is resolving a $3.5 million annual structural budget deficit and it is very likely that this is the last year that the City is able to contribute."

John and his wife, Mary, who helped found the Winter Holiday Council in 1988, believe that the city of Loveland should take responsibility for holiday decorating.

"The city is trying to sidestep this responsibility. I guess they wanted out of the decorating business," Hall said.

This is the time of year when the Winter Holiday Council starts preparing for the next year of Christmas decorations.

The council volunteers search for an artist to design the signature pewter ornament that is sold around the holidays to help fund the installation of decorations around Loveland.

They examine banners and ground displays for needed repairs. And they decide what, if any, new decorations they will buy to light up Loveland.

Strain on resources

Those preparations have become strained in the past two years, as the council has had to cut back on the number of decorations installed.

The holiday council used to submit receipts to the city of Loveland, which would supplement the holiday efforts with a check for $5,000 to $10,000.

The Holiday Council usually hangs banners on light poles around Lake Loveland, decorates light posts to look like candlesticks and places a number of displays at Dwayne Webster Veterans Park and on other public property in Loveland.

The council pays a private tree-trimming company with a bucket truck $12,000 to $15,000 to inspect the Christmas banners and install them.

They pay another company to place the displays of Santa, Jack in the Box, reindeer, 8-foot-tall polar bears and 10-foot-tall soldiers.

This often adds up to more than $20,000, which doesn't include repairs or additions to the collection.

The locally designed pewter ornament -- which is the Winter Holiday Council's annual fundraiser -- brings in $15,000 to $18,000.

"We can't get anything new. If we get new, we can't pay the installers," Mary Hall said.

The Halls were frustrated last year by another roadblock that kept them from hanging as many banners as usual around Lake Loveland. The city mandated a new restriction on which poles could be used.

"That was a safety issue out of Water and Power," said assistant city manager Rod Wensing. "Some poles are designed to take that additional wind load and weight, and other poles were not designed to handle that."

Wensing said city engineers identified the poles that were safe and those that were not. Groups such as the Thompson Valley Rotary Club and Winter Holiday Council are now allowed to hang hearts and banners only from the light poles that are deemed safe.

City holiday efforts

For the past two seasons, the city, in its only official holiday decorating, has paid to string red and white lights across Fourth Street in downtown Loveland, which stayed on display from December through February.

The Loveland Downtown Team -- an advisory group of city officials and community members to improve downtown -- requested proposals to install the lights.

They gave the bid to Bright Christmas of Loveland, according to Susan Ison, cultural services director. The cost of installation and maintenance was about $12,000 in 2012, which was paid for by the city manager's office and Loveland Water and Power, Ison said.

Cutbacks

The funding issue is a matter of the recession and an identified $3.5 million deficit in the general fund, Wensing said.

"They (the Winter Holiday Council) do a great job, and there are a lot of community organizations that do a great job. That list is long," Wensing said.

He said a miscellaneous fund in the city manager's office of $81,000 to assist private efforts was reduced by the city council to $20,000 in 2011.

The city still funds other large community activities such as the Fourth of July festival and fireworks display and the Foote Lagoon concert series.The city also uses its resources to install valentine hearts in February for the Thompson Valley Rotary Club, which costs the city an estimated $5,000, Wensing said.

"The city has had a multi-decade relationship with the Rotary Loveland hearts effort," Wensing said. "We are not taking on any other responsibilities for hanging decorations or banners."

He said the city's budget concerns have limited the amount of money it can spend on private efforts.

"The city historically has not played a direct role in putting up decorations," Wensing said. "We have been cooperative with the Winter Holiday Council. We provide the space. The areas where they place the ground displays is on city property. We provide the infrastructure and the power."

Other cities support holiday decorating

Mary Hall said it is heartbreaking to know that the city of Fort Collins spends about a month stringing white Christmas lights along College Avenue.

"Other cities take responsibility, and these guys are shedding it," she said.

The Christmas lights in Fort Collins that decorate College Avenue between Laporte Avenue and Magnolia Street are funded in a three-way partnership of the city, the Downtown Business Association and the Downtown Development Association, according to Fort Collins parks supervisor Steve Lukowski.

Lukowski said that originally, the three organizations purchased the lights and contracted with Swingle Tree Co. to provide maintenance, installation, inspection and removal.

They renewed the contract in 2012 to lease the lights for $105,000 the first year and $115,000 each year for the next four years. Each of the three organizations pays one-third of this cost.

A volunteer committee, Greeley Lights the Night, purchases the lights for Lincoln Park through donations and organizes the annual parade.

The city of Greeley donates the labor and installation. "We install the lights," said Ken Musil, parks superintendent. "That includes bucket trucks and labor."

The cost for labor, installation and removal is $16,000 to $18,000 Musil said. That doesn't include the cost of fuel for the bucket truck or the utilities, which Musil said is minimal because the lights are LED.

Crews wrap about 75 trees in white and colored LED lights. The lighting and decorative murals in Estes Park are handled by the city, said Kate Rusch, public information officer for the town of Estes Park.

"It's all us, and it's a tradition that we took on many, many years ago," she said.

A contractor helps install the decorations and is managed by the Estes Park Public Works and Utilities departments.

"For us, the Christmas lights are a big part of marketing the town," Rusch said.

The town spent about $43,000 to decorate public property for the 2012-2013 holiday season, which included decorating downtown bridges, stringing lights on approximately 190 street trees, installing around 130 lighted decorations on street light poles along highways and removal at the end of the season.

"This last year we didn't buy anything," John Hall said. "We're trying to refurbish what we haven't put up for years. If we get ingenious, we get the Boy Scouts or someone to help out and refurbish."

Mary Hall said they plan to keep limping along but will have to continue to seriously cut back on what they use to decorate Loveland.

John Hall added that it all depends on how much the pewter ornament brings in each year.

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